Quartzsite, AZ January 2014

Road Runner BLM Campground
Exploring the Quartzsite Area
Tue., Jan. 28 - Thur., Jan. 30

The weather is continuing to be really nice.  We wanted to go geocaching while we were here, so we picked the Grizzly Trail series.  For those who don't know what geocaching is, it is sort of a treasure hunt where people hide containers (caches) then, using GPS coordinates, you try to find what was hidden.  We found all 22 of the caches in this series, over a two day period.  We enjoyed this series because the owners were more creative than some who place series, especially those in the desert.

 We found caches in cacti.

Under rocks.  The theme of this series, the Grizzly Trail, was carried out in the containers used for the caches.

 And in dead tree stumps or branches and bushes.  You have to look closely to see that there is a cache in here.

Geocaching gets us into areas that we might not have gone to otherwise.  Often there are interesting sights along the way, as well.  For instance, Kofa National Wildlife Refuge is a huge area that has been set aside to protect desert big horn sheep, Sonoran pronghorn and other animals of the desert, as well as plants native to the area like the fan palms in Palm Canyon.  We did not have time to explore the refuge in depth, however, the last three geocaches of the series were located along the first couple miles of the main road inside the refuge.  One was very close to this sign.

The cacti that you see below are called cholla (pronounced choya).  The fruits/blossoms are forming at the ends of the segments of new growth.

Below, Earl is searching for a geocache in the cactus in the background while I am trying to get a good picture of some desert plants.  See the little oval shaped balls below this cholla?  This type of cholla is known as "jumping cholla" because they are so prickly that they easily attach themselves to whatever may accidently brush up against them.  It doesn't take much to break off one of the segments, in fact, one time we were out on a hike and I got too close to one that attached to the back of my hiking boot or pants leg.  I didn't notice it until I was back at camp and moved in some way that made it dig into the back of my leg. OOOWWW!!!  We were able to get it detached, but it was a painful process.  Of course you can't just grab it and pull it off.  If you did, it would be attached to your hand, then there would be more pain.  We learned to give this type of cactus a wide berth.

After we got our geocaching done for this trip, Earl worked on setting up a Ham Radio station at the trailer.  We were at Quartzfest, here, all of last week and used the hand held radio, but now there was more time to get things set up in a more leisurely fashion.  We had not established a plan for using the bigger radios when we are out and about in the trailer, so Earl was able to work on that without the distractions of seminars and everything else that was happening during Quartzfest.  Bob helped with setting up and tuning the antenna seen above the back of out trailer.  It looks like a very thin "T".  The other smaller antenna at the front of the trailer is for the TV.

Bob and Earl tuning the antenna

After everything was adjusted and tested to see that it worked properly, Earl got on the air and made contact with a guy in Iowa, the first contact with this radio and the first time for a long time that he has done any long distance radio communication.  Now we have a plan for our mobile "Ham Shack". 

We plan to leave tomorrow, Thursday, so we have to pack up and get in travel mode again.